My Own Spirit's Pride
by Ayien
Summary: He has always understood responsibility, and borne it uncomplainingly on shoulders now scarred and dead, but this responsibility is new, and heavy with its weight of pain and tired memories. [Basch, Vossler] Betaed by Mithrigil.


**A/N: **This was done for the LJ community 'springkink' and betaed by Mithrigil. It contains spoilers for the _Shiva_. It has been edited to comply with Terms of Service. The unedited version is on my Livejournal.

* * *

Basch rubs at his shoulder, sore and burning from the strain of carrying Vossler through the halls of the _Shiva_, and watches Penelo spread her hands over Vossler's burnt body and whisper incantations over and over, the liquid sounds rolling from her mouth and calling memories of the funeral dirges of Landis.

He flexes his arm, feeling the new scars- the sigil of Belias burnt into his flesh- protest, and looks for Ashe and the others. She is watching Vossler and Penelo with the pale, cool eyes of her family, hand on the hilt of her sword.

Vaan is bent over the tip of his spear, wiping at the blood with an old cloth, face pale, drawn, and all he can see in that face is Reks and the thousands of other children who have died in the service of Dalmasca. Penelo keeps casting, blue light diffusing from her hands, eerily calm, voice flat. Even Balthier is silent, his arms folded across his cuirass and head bowed.

Basch sits against the wall, lets his head fall back, and closes his eyes in grief for something intangible.

They are none of them children anymore.

Vossler coughs, back arching in a desperate spasm. There is blood on his lips. Penelo sits back on her heels, cracks her knuckles and regards him thoughtfully, fingers drumming on the hilt of her dagger. Vossler's eyes do not open, but his lips move and a dry name escapes.

"Basch." Penelo glances in his direction, smiles at him wearily, and gets to her feet, shooing the rest from their small room into the next, leaving him alone with Vossler.

With a traitor. His fingers twist around the shaft of his axe. And then he gets up, because even after all this, he can't help but believe that Vossler is a good man, and kneels beside Vossler's cot. Black eyes roll slowly underneath half-opened lids to gaze at him, bloody lips twitching into a bitter smile.

"The Fon Ronsenburg loyalty appears again," he finally rasps from a throat burnt by Belias' flames. Basch bows his head and watches Vossler's burned fingers twitch, wishing for his broadsword's hilt.

"Aye." Vossler chuckles, the sound painful to his ears, and grabs his hand, bandages scraping against Basch's palm. "I, Vossler Azelas of the Order of Dalmasca-" and Basch tries to jerk his hand away, even as Vossler continues to speak, because he has failed Landis and Dalmasca both, and the guilt that he feels does not need to be increased by being responsible for the downfall of a man whose name struck fear into the enemies of Dalmasca-

"-for as long as I shall live." And then it is done. Vossler's grip loosens, and his hand falls to land on the cracked tile floor with a muffled thump of bandages striking stone. He doesn't want to believe that this has happened. He wants to kill Vossler. He wants to take his axe and separate that damning hand from Vossler's body.

He shouldn't feel this way, shouldn't want to do such terrible things to a man who has only done what honor demands. But honor is a cruel mistress, crueler than the old kings of Dalmasca, colder than the winter winds that had blanketed the fort he had grown up in with snow so thick that chocobos couldn't move.

"Why?" Vossler's eyes drift shut, bandaged chest rising and falling softly, the movement so small that one could be forgiven for thinking that he had died. "Because my sins, and my life, are my own." Basch stares at Vossler's familiar face, at the black beard covering the scars on his chin, at the nose broken so many times before, feeling a new responsibility settle on his shoulders, heavier than all the history of Dalmasca, and wishes- not for the first time- that he had died with Landis.

* * *

They are in the village of the Viera, high above the forest floor, resting before the hunt tomorrow. Basch wanders away from the fire where the rest are gathered, captured by a Viera storyteller weaving a tale of the history of the Wood, and leans on a railing, watching the small lights of the forest insects move far below.

He should relax, should stop feeling exposed without his axe and bow, without a weapon near to hand. The Viera will let no one into their village that they do not wish to be there, he knows this, and yet he still worries for his charge. He turns, looks back, watches Penelo squeak as the storyteller suddenly feints toward her, pantomiming a beast. Ashe watches the younger ones with an air of amused tolerance. The back of his neck itches; he looks up, and meets Vossler's black gaze from where the other man stands, half-hidden in the shadows of a hut.

It has become almost familiar, the feeling of Vossler always walking two steps behind him and to the left. It is almost comforting, and he despises himself for it.

"Basch." He turns away, bows his head as he sees that the speaker is Ashe.

"Your Highness." She stares up at him with those pale eyes, with wrinkles already forming by the corners. He can see nothing of the child who rode chocobos half to exhaustion and begged him to teach her swordplay in her anymore, and it leaves him feeling unaccountably sad.

"Can he be trusted?"

"Yes. He has not lost his honor, despite all he has done." Her face softens minutely, and she lays a hand, roughened by a sword-hilt, on his elbow.

"This… arrangement you have with him, it is not causing undue stress?" Basch blinks once, tired.

"If I may-" she nods, "I would ask that you not make our 'arrangement' sound so pleasant. It is slavery, and the fact that it is consensual does not change that by any means." She sighs, fingers trailing over the newest sigil, that of Ultima.

"I am sorry that you must bear this." He knows that she isn't talking about the scars.

"So am I, Your Highness."

Later that night, he rouses from sleep as Vossler slides into the cot behind him, hot hand coming to rest on the ridge of his hipbone with aching familiarity (this only brings sadder memories, of embraces roughened by the bruises of sparring and secret trysts in his tent before battle).

Basch hates this affectionate touch for the lie that it is, remembering the frantic movement of hands, the blood springing from lips nicked by over-enthusiastic teeth, but he cannot muster the will- pathetic, that he, who has stood up to two years of pain in the darkness of Nalbina, cannot push away an old lover- to turn him away.

He can feel Vossler's breath against his shoulder, and reaches back and tangles his fingers with Vossler's. He waits, catches his breath before speaking, somehow feeling betrayed by his own understanding of Vossler's reasons.

"I would not have you feel obligated." Vossler's grip tightens. His voice is rough with pain as he answers,

"'tis no obligation." Basch closes his eyes again, and allows himself to believe that Vossler is speaking the truth.

* * *

Basch still is not quite used to it.

He has always understood responsibility, and borne it uncomplainingly on shoulders now scarred and dead, but this responsibility is new, and heavy with its weight of pain and tired memories.

It makes him uncomfortable to see Vossler Azelas like this, to see this proud man with eyes like black opals glinting from underneath dark brows allow himself to be humbled, to voluntarily spend the rest of his life always at Basch's side, ready to kill and die at his command.

And sometimes, in the night, after Vossler's callused hand has brought him to completion in the most loving manner possible, he turns his face away and wishes that he had left Vossler to die on the _Shiva.  
_


End file.
